Wanna build a high end WC system

Homeboy2Oct 16, 2011, 12:07 AM

Since Bulldozer is a dud , i'm going to build a 2600k and overclock the crap out of it. I plan to add a couple of 570 or 6870 vid cards and water cool them too. I have already ordered a XSPC Raystorm cpu block, I'm thinking the MCP35x for the pump with the built in res. Maybe two in line. My biggest question is about the rads. I'm prepared to pay a premium for performance and bragging rights but I don't want to get ridiculous. I really like the Black Ice Sr 560 but for the price you can buy 3 swiftech 480's, give me some choices with both high noise and low noise rads. Oh yeh, Rubix i'm forgetting about the big res idea.

I would do a bit of reading on Sandy Bridge before ya jump in.... ya may decide, it's not worth the effort. The chip is so efficient that water cooling just isn't providing the extra help that it used to with older CPU designs.

It's almost ironic that [air] coolers like this are becoming available just as processors transition to designs that may ultimately render them unnecessary; even overclocked to 5GHz, an Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K doesn't need anywhere near this level of cooling.

Getting some overclocking in on 570s or 580s might be worth the water cooling effort. Should get some good gains on them. Aside from looks (Watercooling on a windowed case always adds that little bit of cool factor to a PC).

As for cooling the CPU. Not worth it at all. X58 1366 cpus and the Sandy Bridge CPUs can overclock to easy 3.8-4.2 (X58s) and easy 4.0-4.3 (sandy bridge) on stock cooler. Then add in the fact that any game that generally doesn't get more then 70-90 FPS (Modern games with high end graphics) are GPU bound, not CPU bound. In such games, there are almost no FPS increases over 3.6-3.8Ghz.

Any game that's considered "CPU" bound or "CPU bottle necked" at this point aren't really Bottle necks, as those games are already getting over 100FPS which is overkill anyway.

I'd recommend for most bang for your buck, on watercooled OC performance, go with 570. If you can keep em cool they have a lot of OC potential. A single 360 rad should be enough to keep em cool.

What about rads? I see you have two swiftechs? Anything else just a waste of money?

Not necessarily...MCR rads are just a good price/performance sweet spot for most people. I'd actually prefer thicker rads like the XSPC RX series or TC PA's (which are no longer available...there is a replacement series, though). It just depends on the money you are wanting to spend and the performance you need for your loop.

SR1's are good rads...and I would consider them (not the older BIX, high FPI rads, though). To be honest, it's really hard to go wrong with most rads you find out there...it all depends on how much heat watts you need to dissipate, and the rest of your loop just needs to be able to help your rads accomplish this.

I just completed a build with an RX360 and RX240 cooling an OC'd 2600k and 2x GTX580's and I seem to have a lot of headroom to proceed with higher CPU and GPU overclocks. I'm very pleased with these rads (thanks again rubix).